Yeah... this article is so old that the zappos $3000 dollar thing is written about in detail in one of my college management textbooks (Fundamentals of Management, 7th edition, Pearson Publishing, page 17)

Agreed. It was definitely an interesting article in its time, as the concept of 'support as marketing' was (for me at least) when first presented.

That said, does anybody know if this is still a practice they keep post-acquisition?

If anything, that would mean that they could offer more. With 10% unemployment, not only would people be less likely to take the money, but it would be easier to find new people.

Yes, they could offer more but the choice of an easy 3k and then a quick stint of unemployment then versus the long stint of unemployment makes 3k a pittance. Having a job is so overwhelmingly important these days that even something as "large" as 3k pails in comparison.

Last year Amazon.com had almost a billion dollars in net income. It's quite likely that they can afford to maintain their hands-off approach with regards to subsidiaries, preserving Zappos' unique culture.

edit: good catch BobbyH.

To clarify, $24.5 billion was Amazon's revenue in 2009. Net income was only 3.7% of that, or $902 million.

Only 902 million. What a shame.

Sorry, could not resist this sarcasm spasm :-)